Congress Must Pass Aid For Ukraine To Avoid Interruption Of U.S. Support, White House Says

The U.S. Congress should act swiftly to provide aid to Ukraine before the end of the month to avoid an interruption in support provided by the United States, White House national-security spokesman John Kirby said.

"We need that assistance immediately so we can provide them assistance in an uninterrupted way," Kirby said on December 1 at a news briefing.

"We have been consistently providing Ukraine with a truly unprecedented level of security support for over a year and a half. And we were able to provide this with incredible speed," Kirby said.

U.S. aid so far has amounted to $40 billion, and Kirby said Washington plans to send more weapons systems but for this Congress needs to pass a package with additional funding.

President Joe Biden last month submitted to Congress a request for more than $105 billion in defense aid, which included $61.4 billion in aid to Ukraine and $14.3 billion in aid to Israel, but the measure remains blocked.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat-New York) told reporters on November 28 that the U.S. Senate next week will begin consideration of a package that includes aid for Israel and Ukraine and he hopes it will achieve bipartisan support.

Schumer said the aid bill is needed even if there is no agreement on funding for border security measures that Republican lawmakers have demanded.

Kirby said every package provided by the U.S. and other countries to Ukraine thus far has been prepared based on comprehensive consultations with the Ukrainian military regarding their needs for its counteroffensive.

In response to a request for comment on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's assessment in an AP interview that "Ukraine did not get all the weapons it wanted," Kirby said, "Ukraine's desire to obtain more weapons is fully justified."

With reporting by Reuters